Current Affairs Update – 20-22 May, 2017

Hello and welcome to exampundit. Here are the important Current Affairs update of 20, 21 and 22 May, 2017. These are important for the upcoming SBI PO Mains, BOB Manipal, NICL AO Mains and other exams in 2017 July and August.

Current Affairs at a Glance – 20-22 May, 2017

The Goods and Services Tax (GST)
Council on 19 May 2017 finalised a four-tier structure for taxation of services
in line with the tax slab for goods. This
four-tier tax slab includes- 5, 12, 18 and 28 per cent. The bulk of
services will fall in the 18 per cent
bracket, including financial services such as banking and insurance,
telecom, information technology, government services such as auction of
resources including spectrum, and restaurants that have air-conditioning or
serve liquor.

MicrosoftIndia on
Monday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Telecom Sector Skill
Council (TSSC) to drive skill development through “ProjectSangam“.

Railways Minister Suresh Prabhu
on 22 May 2017 launched high speed,
air-conditioned Tejas Express, a premium luxury train that will run from
Mumbai to Goa. This luxury train boasts of several modern facilities on-board
like LED TV and tea/coffee vending machine. The train will operate five days a
week during non-monsoon period, and three days a week during monsoon period.

HassanRouhani was on 20
May 2017 re-elected as the President of Iran after winning the Iranian
presidential elections 2017.

MumbaiIndians were
crowned the new IPL champions following their thrilling one—run win over Rising
Pune Supergiant in the summit clash here tonight.

The Bengaluru FC on 21 May 2017 defeated Mohun Bagan 2-0 to lift
the Federation Cup at the Barabati Stadium in Cuttack.

Bollywood actor JacquelineFernandez was on 19 May 2017 awarded with the International
Humanitarian Award in Editor’s Choice category of Asian Voice Charity Awards.
The award recognises the work of charity organisations in the United Kingdom
(UK) and abroad.

PrashantRanganathan, an
Indian, on 20 May 2017 won the world’s largest pre-college science competition
‘The Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (Intel ISEF) 2017’ in the
United States. Prashant Ranganathan hails from Jamshedpur city of Jharkhand,
India.

The International Day for Biological Diversity was celebrated
globally on 22 May 2017 with the theme “Biodiversity and Sustainable Tourism”.

The 2017 World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development was
observed across the world on 21 May 2017.

Banking & Financial News

GST Council fixes 4-tier tax slab for services

The Goods and Services Tax (GST)
Council on 19 May 2017 finalised a four-tier structure for taxation of services
in line with the tax slab for goods. This four-tier tax slab includes- 5, 12,
18 and 28 per cent.

The bulk of services will fall in
the 18 per cent bracket, including financial services such as banking and
insurance, telecom, information technology, government services such as auction
of resources including spectrum, and restaurants that have air-conditioning or
serve liquor.

Education, Healthcare and Third
Tier Railway Travel will be exempted from GST.

Goods transport and Cab
aggregates like Ola and Uber will attract a 5 per cent GST. This low GST is due
the reason that there is no input tax credit for their key input ‘fuel’.
However, the tax will go up once petrol and diesel are brought under the GST.

Hotels and restaurants, depending
on their services, will attract different tax rates.

Non-AC restaurants and those that
don’t serve liquor will attract 12 per cent GST. Smaller restaurants with less
than Rs 50 lakh annual turnover can avail of the composition scheme with 5 per
cent GST.

As for the hospitality industry,
those with room tariffs below Rs 2500 will face 12 per cent GST, those with Rs
2500-5000 rents will face 18 per cent GST and five-star hotels will face 28 per
cent GST.

Business class air travel will
attract 12 per cent GST while economy tickets will face 5 per cent GST.

In the case of railways, AC rail
travel will face 5 per cent GST with the facility of input credit of services,
while sleeper, metro ticket and seasonal passes will remain exempt.

Work contracts that now attract 6
per cent service tax plus state taxes of 1-2 per cent without any input tax
credit, will now face 12 per cent with input tax credit.

Telecom and Financial Services
will attract 18 per cent GST, which is the standard rate for services.

A peak rate of 28 per cent will
be charged on five services including five-star hotels, movie tickets, racing,
betting on racing and casinos.

Tax on e-commerce was fixed at 1
per cent.

Microsoft India inks MoU with Telecom Sector Skill Council

Microsoft India on Monday signed
a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Telecom Sector Skill Council
(TSSC) to drive skill development through “Project Sangam”.

“Project Sangam” is a
Cloud hosted platform that leverages Microsoft Azure services, as well as the
power of LinkedIn, to provide an integrated mobile-first platform for skilling,
and employment.

Telecom Sector Skill Council is a
not-for-profit public-private partnership between National Skill Development
Corporation and the telecom industry.

Using the platform, TSCC can
create courses compliant with the National Skills Qualification Framework
(NSQF). These courses can then be further extended by their partners and
trainers with their own training material.

The provision has been made
possible through a tie-up between Indian Railways and the broadband and
internet service provider SYSCON/Joister.

The free internet would be
available at a speed of 2 Mbps for the whole of 24 hrs. The initiative is in
line with the Union government’s Digital India campaign.

The service providers,
SYSCON/JOISTER, which are already providing JOISPOT brand Wi-Fi in Pune &
Mumbai institutes, have undertaken the project as a part of their Corporate
Social Responsibility (CSR) activity.

The 24 hrs wi-fi facility will
cover the station entrance and the surrounding area with unlimited data
download.

In order to access the free
Wi-fi, users would have to open the Joispot mobile app and register using their
name and mobile number and request for one time password (OTP).

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Railways Minister Suresh Prabhu launches high speed Tejas Express

Railways Minister Suresh Prabhu
on 22 May 2017 launched high speed, air-conditioned Tejas Express, a premium luxury train that will run from
Mumbai to Goa.

This luxury train boasts of
several modern facilities on-board like LED TV and tea/coffee vending machine.
The train will operate five days a week during non-monsoon period, and three
days a week during monsoon period.

Aeroplane on Tracks: It is
India’s first premium train that is capable of running at 200 kms per hour,
that is it is named as ‘Aeroplane on Tracks’. However, due to constraints
related to rail tracks, it will run at a speed of 160 kilometres per hour.

Design: It is manufactured at the
Rail Coach Factory in Kapurthala. It has automatic entrance door, a first in
non-suburban train in Indian railways. The graffiti proof and vinyl-wrapped
exterior has a bright orange and yellow colour theme.

Route: Tejas Express will operate
between Mumbai and Karmali (Goa) for five days a week during non-monsoon period
and three days a week during monsoon. It will have stops at Dadar, Thane,
Panvel, Ratnagiri and Kudal stations.

Catering Services: If a passenger
does not opt for catering services at the time of booking the ticket and
decides to purchase meals onboard, an extra amount of Rs 50 per service will be
levied, in addition to the prescribed catering charges.

Safety and Security: This
high-speed train has all the safety measures like suppression system, fire
suppression system, smoke detection and fire detection. There is also a
GPS-based passenger information display system and a digital destination board.

Disabled Friendly: There is
Braille assistance installed for visually challenged passengers in the train.

Hygiene: The train has bio-vacuum
toilets facility in all the coaches. It also has hand dryers, water level
indicators and touch-less water taps.

Manual titled Living conditions in Institutions for Children in
conflict with Law released by WCD Ministry

The Ministry of Women and Child
Development has developed a manual titled “Living conditions in Institutions
for Children in conflict with Law”.

The manual was prepared following
the directions of the Supreme Court dated 5 February 2016 in the matter of
Re-inhuman conditions in 1382 prisons, WP (C) 406 of 2013.

The apex court directed the
ministry to prepare a manual similar to the Model Prison Manual as being
prepared by Ministry of Home Affairs that will take into consideration the
living conditions and other issues pertaining to juveniles who are in Observation
Homes or Special Homes or Places of Safety in terms of the Juvenile Justice
(Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015.

The objective of preparing such a
Manual for children in conflict with law is to provide guidelines to the
States/UTs and other stakeholders which will help them to establish
institutions for children in conflict with the law and providing appropriate
institutional and rehabilitative services to them.

The Manual has been framed within
the purview of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015
and Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Model Rules, 2016.

Chitale Committee recommends several measures for Desiltation of Ganga

Chitale committee constituted to
prepare guidelines for desiltation of river Ganga from Bhimgauda (Uttarakhand)
to Farakka (West Bengal), submitted its report to Ministry of Water Resources
on 19 May 2017.

The committee in its report has
recommended a slew of measures like a study of reach wise sediment transport
processes along with establishing annual sediment budgets to guide de-silting
activities.

It also recommended the
preparation of annual reports (Sand registry) describing the previous
de-silting/dredging activity and a technical institute may be entrusted to
conduct the sediment budget, morphological and flood routeing studies that
would examine and confirm the necessity of the de-silting of the reach under consideration.

Appointments

Hassan Rouhani re-elected as President of Iran

Hassan Rouhani was on 20 May 2017
re-elected as the President of Iran after winning the Iranian presidential
elections 2017.

This will be his second term as
Iran’s President. Rouhani won his second term by presenting himself as the
candidate of change and social freedoms that ended many sanctions.

Rouhani was first elected as
Iran’s President in 2013. He won 2013 elections by pledging to end Iran’s isolation
and improve civil rights.

Sports News

Mumbai Indians win third IPL trophy with thrilling 1-run win

Mumbai Indians were crowned the
new IPL champions following their thrilling one—run win over Rising Pune
Supergiant in the summit clash here tonight.

Rohit Sharma opted to bat after
winning the toss but Mumbai batsmen failed to deliver while the Supergiant
bowlers came out firing on all cylinders.

Alexander Zverev on 21 May 2017
defeated World No. 2 Novak Djokovic 2 6-4 6-3 to win the Italian Open. The
final was held in Rome, Italy.

With the win, Zverev became the
youngest Masters 1000 titlist since a 19-year-old Djokovic won the 2007 Miami
Open presented by Itau.

World News

NASA names bacterium found on ISS
after APJ Abdul Kalam

A team of scientists at the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in May 2017 named a new
organism after A P J Abdul Kalam, a former President of India.

The new organism is a bacterium,
which has been found only on the International Space Station (ISS) and has not
been found on Earth.

The bacterium has been named as
Solibacillus kalamii to honour the late president, who was also an aerospace
scientist.

Awards & Honors

Jacqueline Fernandez wins UK Humanitarian Award

Bollywood actor Jacqueline
Fernandez was on 19 May 2017 awarded with the International Humanitarian Award
in Editor’s Choice category of Asian Voice Charity Awards. The award recognises
the work of charity organisations in the United Kingdom (UK) and abroad.

Fernandez was awarded for her
philanthropic work in India. She has been working with the charity ‘Habitat for
Humanity for last five years. This organisation works to help people to live
with dignity by giving them homes to live in.

While, writer Jeffrey Archer was
awarded with the Lifetime Achievement Award for his services to various charity
organisations over the years.

Prashant Ranganathan, an Indian,
on 20 May 2017 won the world’s largest pre-college science competition ‘The
Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (Intel ISEF) 2017’ in the
United States. Prashant Ranganathan hails from Jamshedpur city of Jharkhand,
India.

Ranganathan received the award in
the Environmental Engineering category for his project ‘Biodegradation of
Chlorpyrifos using native bacteria’. His project will help farmers in
biodegrading the pesticide which is plaguing the country.

Four Indian-Americans also
received Intel ISEF Awards in various categories. Pratik Naidu from Virginia
bagged an award in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, Adam Nayak from Oregon
won in Earth and Environmental Sciences, Karthik Yegnesh from Pennsylvania won
in Mathematics and Rahul Subramaniam from Connecticut won in the Microbiology
category.

In all, more than 1700 students
from across the world participated in the week-long event.

Days

International Day for Biological Diversity celebrated worldwide

The International Day for
Biological Diversity was celebrated globally on 22 May 2017 with the theme
“Biodiversity and Sustainable Tourism”.

The theme was chosen as it
coincides with the observance of2017, which is the International Year of
Sustainable Tourism for Development, and also to contribute to ongoing
initiatives like the Sustainable Tourism Programme.

The observance of the day aims to
raise awareness of the important contribution of sustainable tourism to
economic growth as well as to the conservation of biodiversity.

World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development 2017
observed

The 2017 World Day for Cultural
Diversity for Dialogue and Development was observed across the world on 21 May
2017 with an aim to bridge the gap between different cultures.

The Day celebrates not only the
richness of the world’s cultures but also the essential role of intercultural
dialogue for achieving peace and sustainable development.

In December 2002, the UN General
Assembly in its resolution declared 21 May as the World Day for Cultural
Diversity for Dialogue and Development following UNESCO’s adoption of the
Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity in 2001.